Steve Bannon told Epstein he would ‘take down’ Pope Francis, DOJ records show

WASHINGTON, DC: Newly released files from the Department of Justice appear to show that former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon discussed efforts aimed at challenging Pope Francis’s leadership in messages with convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. 

The exchange offers insight into their correspondence and political views, including references to a controversial book on the Vatican that Bannon wanted to promote. The documents also touch on wider tensions between Francis and figures linked to the conservative movement, including President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance.

Steve Bannon and Epstein discuss Pope Francis

According to files shared by the DOJ, Bannon appears to have written to Epstein in June 2019, “Will take down [Pope] Francis,” alongside other targets including “The Clintons, Xi… EU – come on brother.”  

Bannon was a former advisor to Trump and reportedly identifies as Roman Catholic, yet he was highly critical of Francis, viewing the pontiff’s progressive global agenda as opposed to his own “sovereigntist” stance.

In a 2018 interview with The Spectator, Bannon described Francis as “beneath contempt” and accused him of siding with “globalist elites.”

In the same exchange, Bannon asked if Epstein had read 'In the Closet of the Vatican,' a 2019 book by French journalist Frederic Martel that made the controversial claim that 80 percent of clergy working in the Vatican are gay.

Bannon even suggested to Epstein “you are now exec producer of ‘ITCOTV’,” hinting at turning the book into a film, though how serious that offer was remains unclear from the documents. Epstein’s reply referenced “Chomsky asking when film,” in an apparent nod to intellectual Noam Chomsky, with whom Epstein was known to be close.

Elsewhere in the files, it was shown that Epstein emailed himself on April 1, 2019, a message reading “in the closet of the Vatican,” and sent Bannon an article titled “Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics must choose.” In response, Bannon simply wrote, “Easy choice.”

Pope Francis, conservative figures and political tensions

Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of the late pope, said Bannon thought he could use Martel’s book to embarrass and damage Pope Francis, while claiming to “purify” the church. “I think he badly misjudged the nature of the book – and Pope Francis,” Ivereigh told CNN.

While the focus of the DOJ files was on Bannon’s message to Epstein, the article also noted that he was not the only figure linked to the conservative movement to clash with the Pope. Trump, despite paying tribute to Francis after his death, calling him “a good man, [who] worked hard and loved the world” also had a history of disputes with the pontiff. 

Before Trump’s first presidency, Francis criticized his vow to build a wall between the US and Mexico, saying, “a person who thinks only about building walls… and not building bridges, is not Christian.”  

In January last year, one day before Trump’s second inauguration, Francis again spoke out against plans for mass deportations, writing that such policies would unfairly burden “the poor wretches who have nothing,” and dismissing them as not a solution to societal issues.

The Pope also had public disagreement with Vance, a Roman Catholic who had promoted an idea known as "ordo amoris," a hierarchical ordering of love from family outward, which he  rejected, saying, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests."